When people are looking to put down exercise as a weight loss tool they often site articles such as the one in Time magazine published last August.
The provocative article was titled, "Why Exercise Won’t Make You Thin."
It's quite lengthy, but the gist of it says that all the exercise in the world won’t make you thin if you end up eating more calories than you burn, or if you move less during the rest of the day. To me this doesn’t actually have anything to do with the exercise itself since the exercise is actually doing something to boost your metabolism and burn calories. What the article should instead state is that when you begin an exercise program you can’t change other variables and still expect to lose weight.
Also, we have to keep in mind that no one is mentioning how psychology has more to do with this than anything else. Just because you exercise does that mean you have to reward yourself with a doughnut like it says in the Time magazine article?
Once we stop looking to exercise to be “the cure” for losing weight and rather as one piece of the puzzle then I think we won’t have to make up scenarios of why burning calories will only make you consume more calories. Also, in my next post we’ll debate about whether or not exercise really does increase your appetite (plus, I’ll show you the results from a previous informal poll we had right here on NutritionData!).